


New Memories, Homemade

by renmyuai



Category: Uta no Prince-sama
Genre: Baking, Domestic Fluff, Fluff, M/M, Slice of Life, soft. precious., writing this made me crave cupcakes for a week
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-07
Updated: 2019-02-07
Packaged: 2019-10-24 00:11:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,937
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17693849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/renmyuai/pseuds/renmyuai
Summary: Reiji's been baking cupcakes! He convinces Ai to help him with the decorations, and in the process finds an extra hint of sweetness elsewhere...





	New Memories, Homemade

**Author's Note:**

> reiai fluff... happy bois... there's always room for more in the world so here's my contribution, for the Utapri Winter Flashbang! Big thanks to Raine, @Wolfe_Raine on twitter, who I was paired with and whose art you can see at the end of the fic! and on twitter [here!](https://twitter.com/wolfe_raine/status/1093541318176002049?s=19)

"I suspect you've put more sugar in those than the recipe calls for."

"...Ai-Ai, you only just walked in!" Reiji laughed, turning away from the oven to face Ai, who stood in the doorway with a neutral expression. "Can you just tell by the smell or something?"

"Yes. It doesn't smell too excessively sweet, though, so I imagine you were close."

"That's fine by me then! I didn't measure it out exactly to begin with." He glanced back at the timer on the counter. "Almost done, actually. Nice timing!"

Ai raised an eyebrow, walking over to stand at Reiji's side and leaning down to peer into the oven window. "If you have the recipe, why wouldn't you follow it exactly?" As he looked in, he saw the cupcakes rising just a final bit more, golden-brown and delicate.

"I just felt like winging it, y'know?" With a warm grin, Reiji watched as Ai stood back up. "Sure, maybe it'd turn out 'better' if I follow the instructions perfectly, but sometimes you just have to _feel_ the right ingredients."

"... _feel_ them?"

"Yeah! It's what my mom always says too when she's making up stock for the shop. Like, she has recipes she follows too, but she's always fiddling with stuff to see if she can make it better. Oh, that's what this is for too, by the way—" Reiji gestured to the oven again as he spoke. "—she wants to start selling some cakes in the summer, so I'm giving it a try! I'm not used to making sweet stuff though..."

"Hence why there's probably too much sugar in them."

"Hey, it's only the first attempt! And it's subjective anyway. I bet Myu-chan would still think they need more..."

"Camus is the exception, not the rule." As Ai spoke, the timer behind Reiji beeped sharply, causing him to spin around with a grin.

"Done! Gimme a sec..." Brandishing his oven mitts with a flourish, he opened the oven door as Ai stepped back to give him space, retrieving the tray of cakes and quickly placing them on the cooling rack he'd prepared to the side. "Gotta wait for them to cool before decorating... Ai-Ai, you should help me!"

Ai looked at Reiji with a slightly perplexed frown. "If you're making them for your family store, shouldn't it still be your job?"

"Don't think of it as a job. It's just something fun to do! And you're good at precise stuff, right? Let's both come back in an hour or so and ice them together, then!"

"You're assuming I don't already have plans."

"Aw, do you? I mean, if you're busy already it's fine..." Reiji spoke earnestly, but his smile slipped slightly. "So you can't?"

Ai glanced at the cakes, then back at Reiji, and then let out a small sigh while shaking his head. "I'm not occupied, actually. So I'll come back in an hour if you insist."

"Ai-Ai!" Reiji hopped a little with excitement, the light suddenly back in his eyes. "Okey-doke! Back in the kitchen in an hour for a quality bonding experience!"

"Where's the ingredients to decorate it with, by the way? Presumably you have that already."

"Yep! It's all in here." Reiji pulled open the cupboard under the counter, revealing a sizeable variety of icing sugars and decorative sweets and sprinkles. "I got a bunch of stuff so I can make a few different types, y'know?"

Ai knelt down in front of the cupboard and started looking through the options. "I'm going to pick some things out for mine now, I think."

"Ooh, see? You're actually pretty excited for this now, huh, Ai-Ai?"

"A precise activity like this deserves to be done right, that's all." Ai said this without turning to face Reiji, who couldn't see the small smile that had slid onto his face.

"Either way, I'm glad you're getting into it!" Reiji cheered, moving his hand down and playfully ruffling Ai's hair where he crouched, causing his hidden smile to immediately switch to a frown in mild annoyance. "I'm gonna go sort some stuff while they cool down, then. Back in an hour!" He bounced out of the kitchen with a parting wave, and Ai nodded without turning back, already searching through piles of boxes and tubs with something specific in mind.

* * *

Ai counted it as promptly sixty-three minutes later when Reiji returned, smiling as if his expression hadn't changed the entire time he was away. The cakes remained untouched on the rack, now sufficiently cool, but Ai had taken the time to arrange a selection of the decorating ingredients on the counter next to them, neatly organised in precise rows.

“Ai-Ai, did you stay here the whole hour?”

“I wanted to make sure I picked the optimal combination of decorations for my cakes, so yes.”

“Man, you got super serious about it all of a sudden. It doesn’t have to be perfect right away, y’know? Let’s just try some things out,” Reiji grinned, walking over to the arrangement of icing tubs and sprinkles, “and have fun, that’s just as important!”

“If a job’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well.” Ai picked up one of the tubs of icing and began to prep it, scooping a small amount into a piping bag he had retrieved from the cupboard. “Though I do admit, a trial-and-error approach does lend itself to a process like this.”

“And you can’t have trial-and-error without the error!” Reiji followed Ai in preparing a bag of icing – earlier by himself, Ai had wondered why Reiji seemed to have at least two of each utensil, but he assumed it wasn’t important. “Still, I know you’re gonna do great right from the get-go. Ai-Ai’s so talented…”

Ai briefly opened his mouth to respond, but closed it again with a small half-smile as he began to pipe his icing onto the first cupcake. He’d chosen a pastel yellow for this first attempt, thinking to himself that a bright colour would have fit more for the prospect of summer but making do with the selection on offer. Soft, delicate ribbons of icing layered over each other as Ai manoeuvred the bag with his trademark precision, covering the surface evenly and moving from the outer edges to the centre where the swirling intensified and closed together. Taking care not to break the pattern as he pulled the nozzle away, he nodded to himself while Reiji watched with wide eyes.

“See? You can do it so neatly first time like that!” With a sigh, Reiji, attempted to follow suit, squeezing out the first ribbons of his icing – a verdant green, not unlike his signature colour as an idol. His wrists turned at a slightly awkward angle as he tried to mirror Ai’s pattern, causing some of the icing to drip down the side of his cupcake, and as he approached the centre the layering became slightly rushed and uneven, though he ended it with a successful flourish.

“You’re doing it too impatiently.”

“But I still took longer than you, didn’t I? How’d you even keep it so still…?” Reiji turned again as Ai iced a second cake, practically identical from every angle aside from the tail end in the centre. “And that one! It looks so much fluffier and light when you do it…” As he spoke, he went to try his second cake, but Ai made him pause as he put his own icing bag down and stepped round to behind Reiji.

“Try it like this.”

“What are you do—”

Reiji cut himself off as Ai leaned slightly into his back, bringing his arms around the side of Reiji’s and holding on to the backs of Reiji’s hands. He tilted his head slightly to rest on Reiji’s shoulder, the slight height difference between them making Ai bend just a little but not enough to be uncomfortable. He moved Reiji’s hands, still holding the icing bag, over the surface of the cupcake.

“You squeeze the bag and I’ll move you.”

“O…kaaay…” Reiji faltered as he spoke but nodded softly, doing as he was instructed. As icing began to trickle steadily from the nozzle, Ai’s hands guided Reiji along the outside of the cupcake, seeming to adjust whenever the icing flowed out unevenly. Together their hands coiled around effortlessly to the centre, where Ai lifted both of them upwards and away to end the swirl of emerald with a neat curl. He then let go of Reiji’s hands, though he didn’t step back just yet.

“See? You need to move it more steadily, and match the speed the icing comes out.”

“Right…” Reiji blinked a few times. He’d been too distracted to really process the icing; Ai’s hands were surprisingly cool to the touch, but gentle still. “Can you, uh, show me one more time?”

“…Very well.” Ai took Reiji’s hands again, and he attempted to fight the weird tingling in the backs of his hands where Ai touched them, matched by a warmth creeping up his cheeks. The icing made its way to the centre unharmed, but with no real input on Reiji’s part as he became more aware of the way Ai’s chin felt grazing softly against his shoulder, and the way Ai’s chest pressed lightly into his back as they both moved. But once the second cake was iced – shaped as evenly as the first – Ai stepped back fully this time, and Reiji let out a breath he didn’t realise he had been holding in.

“Do you get it now?”

“…Yeah! Yeah, yeah, I got it. I see how it works, Ai-Ai!” Reiji laughed, half-forced, but if Ai had noticed he didn’t say anything. Moving back to his own cupcakes, he nodded.

“Shall we each finish our own halves then?”

“Right. Right!”

They continued to ice their cakes in silence after this, not pausing to look at each other’s progress (though Reiji could see Ai’s methodical strokes in the corner of his eye, and he couldn’t help but laugh to himself). They managed to finish around the same time regardless, and once Reiji flicked the last swirl into his cupcake’s centre he put the icing bag down and picked one of his creations up, showing it to Ai with a grin.

“Some of them messed up again, but I got this one just right, I think!”

Ai blinked. “Is that one you did by yourself?”

“Yeah! It’s close, huh?”

“It’s almost perfect, I would agree.”

Reiji felt a slight warmth in his cheeks again at Ai’s approval, then nodded. “So this is the one we should eat first!”

“We… only just made them? I thought we were going to put sprinkles on too—”

“Yeah, we’ll finish decorating the others too, but we gotta share a cake first! Make sure they taste good and all, yeah?” Reiji peeled away the cupcake case his creation had been baked in and carefully broke the cake in half with his fingers. “Ah, actually, maybe I should have picked one of the messier ones for this…”

“I suppose they all have to be eaten at some point, though.”

“That’s true! Anyway, here.” Reiji handed over half to Ai, who didn’t hesitate to take a quick bite. Reiji ate his alongside him, purposefully looking away the second he caught himself staring at Ai’s lips, face warmer than ever, and after a few more soft chews they were both done.

“Well, Reiji? What do you think?” Ai’s question brought Reiji’s focus back, and as he looked at Ai he gathered his reply together with a smile.

“I think you were right, Ai-Ai. Just a little too sweet… too much sugar."

**Author's Note:**

> hopefully reading this didn't make anyone as desperate for cake as I was jkhdsfkjdhsk  
> thank you for reading! and a HUGE thank you to the mods of the flashbang for organising all this!!


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